By Xingduo Zheng 24103043

In today’s global music industry, brand building has become a crucial factor determining an artist’s cultural influence, commercial success, and audience engagement. BLACKPINK is a Korean girl group affiliated with YG Entertainment, and has become one of the most influential music brands in the 21st century. It has transcended language, geographical, and cultural boundaries through a highly strategic and visually unified image. This essay applies Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP) Theory and User-Generated Content (UGC) Theory to critically analyze how BLACKPINK attracts, mobilises, and sustains global audience engagement, while also considering the strategic limitations of these approaches. “As academic literature notes, brands can be approached as cultural artifacts and as focal points of social interaction among consumers.” (Jarrar, 2015)

Blackpink debuted in 2016. They are the ambassadors of the “girl crush” concept in the Korean Wave, which explores themes of confidence and female empowerment. Blackpink has gained immense global attention and achieved extremely high record sales, making them one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. They have a large following and high play counts on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. Blackpink has won many internationally renowned awards, including the Golden Disc Award and the MAMA Award. They have also worked as advocates for climate change awareness, and the group was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2023. They are also the first girl group to enter Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia list. All these achievements demonstrate that they have created astonishing commercial value in a short period of time.

BLACKPINK once segmented, targeted and positioned (STP) their audience based on the theory. Firstly, their core audience came from Generation Z, and within this group, the proportion of females was higher. “What makes this generation different . . . is not just its demographic muscle, but it is the first to grow up surrounded by digital media. . . . Constantly surrounded by technology, today’s kids are accustomed to its strong presence in their lives.” (Kotler, 2005). Their brand personality represented the confidence, independence and strength of women. They mentioned in their lyrics “Let’s kill this love” in their song <Kill This Love>. The creative intention of this song called on women not to become weak and sad in love, even if they feel hurt and heartbroken, to hide their tears and kill this love. Also, in their early work <DDU-DU DDU-DU>, they used “free and naughty bad girls” and “kind face, disdainful attitude” as their self-description labels. Their works almost all called on women to be free and powerful. Their target audience group was young women. As a new era girl group, they represented the awakening of women’s independence consciousness in this era. Their physical features were obvious from their names, “Black” and “Pink” respectively representing coolness and strength, and sweetness and fashion, the combination of these two different styles became the most representative feature of this girl group. In all their album covers, they also used a large amount of pink and black elements design, combined with elements such as demons, wings, crowns, etc., aiming to highlight their personalities. “Integrated marketing communications produce better communications consistency and greater sales impact. They place the responsibility in someone’s hands . . . to unify the company’s image as it is shaped by thousands of company activities.” (Kotler, 2005) The appearance of BLACKPINK’s members was very prominent. The group consisted of four members: Jennie, who was called cat-like in appearance, her style was lazy and cool. Lisa, through her golden fringe hairstyle, powerful dance movements and rap, was not only highly recognizable but also more powerful and cool. Jisoo represented sweetness and elegance with her gentle appearance and style in the team. Rosé represented fashion and confidence with her ethereal and unique voice, as well as the symbol of freedom and elegant long blonde hair style. They were full of power and charm on stage, and in the interaction on the stage, they demonstrated their cuteness and kindness. Their positivity and efforts influenced the thoughts of their fans. Most of their fans loved fashion and makeup. They yearned to be filled with confidence and strength themselves. They were mostly young and energetic, liked to take on challenges, and liked new things. This led to a psychological and value-level resonance between the brand and the fans. BLACKPINK positioned themselves not as Korean or Asian style, but more towards globalization and coexisting with high-end and fashion, which was reflected in their long-term endorsement of international luxury brands such as Chanel and Dior. On the other hand, their songs contained a large number of English lyrics, also more towards globalization.However, while this positioning has strongly resonated with young female audiences seeking independence and confidence, it may simultaneously exclude listeners who prefer other styles, such as cute and playful ones. This indicates that BLACKPINK’s STP strategy prioritizes promoting and leading with an attitude of new ideas rather than merely pursuing and catering to the demands of the masses.

“Target market — A set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics that the company decides to serve.” (Kotler,2005). Their fan base is distributed all over the world. This Korean brand not only holds an authoritative position in its domestic market, but also has a huge fan base in Japan, Southeast Asia, North America and Europe. This is largely due to the different promotion strategies they adopt for different regions. BLACK PINK’s promotional strategy for Japan is to break down cultural barriers and release Japanese-language albums for Japanese fans, re-arranging 9 popular songs into Japanese lyrics. This has strengthened the cultural identification and a sense of closeness among Japanese fans. Unlike other countries where streaming is the main method, Japanese fans still have the habit of purchasing physical albums or CDs. This has significantly increased the sales of the albums. This is not a first attempt for the Korean team, but the result of years of accumulated success. Other earlier cases include BigBang and Girl’s Generation. Secondly, in the promotion of Western countries, they create a high proportion of English lyrics in works such as <Ice cream> and <Bet You Wanna>, lowering the language barrier for English listeners. And these two songs have also collaborated with famous stars from Europe and America, Cardi B and Selena Gomez, which makes their works closer to Western aesthetics and gains a large amount of media coverage. On the other hand, Rosé is from Australia, and the four of them can speak fluent English. Their identity inherently has an international flavor, making cross-cultural communication easier. They have also performed at Coachella – (one of the largest music festivals in the world). This provided them with a lot of exposure in the West and even globally. Notably, there is also the Southeast Asian market. Firstly, Lisa is Thai, so the team fully utilized the advantage of cultural connection, making Lisa have a huge influence in Thailand and giving the brand a sense of closeness from the locals in Southeast Asia. This achieved a large-scale fan base. Moreover, in BLACK PINK’s tours, cities such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia are included every year. For Korea, they strive to maintain their roots, such as endorsing Korean products like Hello Bubble hair dye or participating in the variety show <Black Pink Diaries>, because Korea is not sufficient to be the main economic source of the brand. In terms of expanding the fan base, their tour strategy is also very important. Initially, in the BLACKPINK Arena Tour and World Tour [IN YORU AREA] in 2018, the places they visited only involved the Asian region. But starting from 2019, their tours expanded to North America, including 5 cities in the United States led by Los Angeles and Canada, they also went to Europe and Australia, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Melbourne, etc. Their promotional efforts during the tours enabled them to gain more global attention. For different countries, they adopt different promotion strategies.

One thing that sets K-pop apart from other musical styles is the big focus on choreography. In many music videos you will see groups dancing in a way that match both the style of the song and the branding of the musician. No simple ‘two-step’ will be found in K-pop choreography, with movements often involving precision, formation changes, synchronisation and above all else, energy! (BBC, 2025), this has attracted many fans who love to showcase themselves through dance. The choreography team of BLACKPINK adopted a replicable design. For example, the gun movements in the chorus of the song <DDU-DU DDU-DU> are simple and easy to imitate, and they can also highlight the cool personality. When fans find it easy to imitate, they will spontaneously create videos, providing the brand with more free publicity. Many of BLACKPINK’s works will launch challenges on social media after the release of the MV. For example, the recently very popular topic #Jump-challenge on TikTok, it is estimated that a total of 586,000 people used this topic to post works, and these people are some fans, or ordinary users, or some dance bloggers who want to get the same traffic. The video from the member TRAINEE X even reached 1.4 million likes. The powerful data has increased the strong playback volume of the brand’s songs. BLACKPINK managed to encourage fans to create content, which expanded their brand’s influence and increased the exposure of the song. “This approach is based on the observation that consumers form communities around brands thus making the brand a focal point of social interaction among enthusiastic users of a particular brand.” (Jarrar, 2015).Such marketing methods fully conform to the User-Generated Content (UGC) Theory. On YouTube, there are many reaction videos, such as the reaction video of <Pink Venom> released by Differently Alike in 2022, which received 2.04 million views. (Differently Alike, 2022) This also massively spread the brand’s music and MV. Each member’s personal characteristics also stimulated UGC in other types. For example, Lynh vu’s fashion video posted on TikTok (Lynh, 2025). She used Jennie’s hit song and became popular on the internet by imitating Jennie’s dressing style, receiving 173,000 likes. This deepened people’s impression of Jennie’s style and also indirectly raised Jennie’s popularity.

Within the global music industry, BLACKPINK occupies a distinctive market position that differentiates them from both other K-pop girl groups and mainstream Western pop artists.“market positioning refers to how a brand is designed to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desirable place in the minds of target consumers relative to competitors.”Kotler(2005). In the context of the Korean Wave, BLACKPINK’s most direct competitors include high-profile girl groups such as TWICE and Red Velvet. While TWICE is positioned around approachability and frequent content output to maximize mass-market reach, BLACKPINK adopts a more selective release strategy combined with a strong “girl crush” identity that emphasizes confidence, exclusivity, and visual impact. This differentiated positioning enables BLACKPINK to maintain a premium brand image rather than competing directly on volume or frequency of musical releases. Apart from the K-pop industry, BLACKPINK also competes indirectly with global female pop artists such as Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa in terms of global attention and popularity. Unlike many K-pop performances that are limited by genres, BLACKPINK compensates for the gap between K-pop and the Western pop market through English lyrics, international collaborations, and performances at major global music festivals like Coachella. This mixed positioning enables BLACKPINK to simultaneously become a K-pop group and a global pop brand, thereby expanding their competitive territory beyond Asia.

In conclusion, BLACKPINK, as one of the most influential music brands in the contemporary world, has achieved its success not by chance, but as a result of the highly integrated combination of systematic brand strategies and modern marketing theories. By applying the STP theory, BLACKPINK has conducted precise market segmentation globally, creating a unique brand positioning that combines high-end fashion sense with strong female power. In the highly competitive music market, BLACKPINK has established a clear and differentiated identity. The UGC theory further explains how BLACKPINK expands its brand influence through audience participation. These user-generated contents not only reduce the promotion costs of the brand but also help BLACKPINK’s image transcend language, culture and geographical boundaries, achieving exponential dissemination effects. The participation and creativity of UGC enable fans to transform from “viewers” to “collaborators”, jointly shaping BLACKPINK’s brand culture. Therefore, the brand building of BLACKPINK is not only a successful combination of the music industry and visual art, but also a typical example that describes modern fan culture, digital communication methods and globalization. Their success demonstrates how contemporary music brands can establish a strong sense of identity and commercial value globally through precise positioning and fan participation mechanisms.

Bibliography

Jarrar, Y. (2015) Branding Strategies A Chronological Review. ARP International Journal of Social Science 1 (1) 71-82.

Kotler, P., Wong, V., Saunders, J., & Armstrong, G. Eds. (2005). Principles of Marketing (4th European Edition). Harlow: Pearson Education.

Differently Alike (2022) BLACKPINK- ‘Pink Venom’M/V reaction. Available online: https://youtu.be/hTrRsCpcMhc?si=EX3oETKM9oaHbBfM [Accessed 29/11/2025]

Lynh vu (2025)Learn to coordinate with her. Available online: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5FTQRsn/ [Accessed 30/11/2025]